Politics and Paranoia

[eyeongovt]

In the acrid atmosphere that passes for normal life in Albany these days, no event seems to occur without having nefarious motives ascribed to it.

Take the $15,000 recently added to the salary of Herbert Teitelbaum, executive director of the state Public Integrity Commission. Officials explained the boost came because his new shop combines duties formerly performed by the state Ethics Commission and the Temporary State Commission on Lobbying, which are now combined.

But Teitelbaum is probing Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the so-called Troopergate affair, so arch-rival state Sen. Joseph Bruno smells a rat. "I never dreamt that you would have an executive director getting a $15,000 raise in the middle of an investigation," he said last week.

Is Spitzer trying to buy off Teitelbaum? Is he setting up the government watchdog to sic Bruno next? Or is the plot even darker?

Just think: If Bruno and Spitzer drag out their feud for the next three years, every detail of government can be subjected to such paranoid speculation.

The Post Standard

[run4it]

Eye, do you ever actually do any of your own research and thinking, or do you just take at face value whatever some anti-Spitzer rag/editor spoonfeeds you?